Are America’s Allies Finally Learning to Deal With Trump?

Six months ago, Philip Gordon and Mara Karlin wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs about the plight of the United States’ allies in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. What was surprising, they argued, was not the administration’s cajoling and threats, or all the ways U.S. policy had called into question the basic principles of these relationships. The surprise was that allies were surprised by these moves in the first place. Almost a year into Trump’s second term, they had done little to develop a plan B.

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The months since have brought a wave of new challenges to U.S. alliances—the threats to seize Greenland and pull out of NATO, the continued warnings to free-riders, the shifting approach to China, and a war in Iran launched with little consultation even of the Gulf leaders who would be most directly affected.

Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Gordon, who was national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, and Karlin, who was assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration, on June 1. They discussed how the responses of U.S. allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have evolved over the course of Trump’s second term, and how those responses will shape and constrain U.S. power in the years ahead.

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Sources:

“The Allies After America” by Philip H. Gordon and Mara Karlin

“The Return of Total War” by Mara Karlin

“America’s Middle East Purgatory” by Mara Karlin and Tamara Cofman Wittes

This episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview was produced by Rose Kohler and Kanishk Tharoor, with audio engineering by Christopher Koch and Markus Zakaria and original music by Robin Hilton. Special thanks to Irina Hogan.

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